


Once in a Lifetime (This is Not my Beautiful Wife)

by Tamoline



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 07:15:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12030876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tamoline/pseuds/Tamoline
Summary: Audrey's completely... okay with life stuck in Eagle Point. Completely. Even if it does seem to mean a life interwoven with Laura's.Audrey and Laura: a map of their relationship before and after Laura's death.





	Once in a Lifetime (This is Not my Beautiful Wife)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilacsigil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilacsigil/gifts).



> Many thanks to [Prinzenhasserin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinzenhasserin/pseuds/Prinzenhasserin) for betaing this work, and for the title of this fic.

**Before**

When Audrey got to school for the first day of her last year, Laura was waiting outside, slouched against the side of the building, idly holding a lit cigarette in one hand like she wasn’t quite sure whether she could be bothered to finish it or not, surrounded by the people who hung around her like buzzing flies, hoping her cool would rub off on them.

As Audrey got closer, Laura looked over at her, meeting her eyes and smiling slightly. “Hey,” she said.

Something within Audrey relaxed and she smiled back, wider, way wider than would ever be cool. “Hi!” she chirped, then winced at the enthusiasm. Laura didn’t seem to react though, just casually moving her hand with the still-lit cigarette in a lazy arc, clearing a space next to her.

Happiness buzzed within Audrey. Today was looking like it was going to be one on the good days, one of the days that made all the days when Laura barely seemed to notice her existence worthwhile.

“Hi,” mimicked Robbie, one of Laura’s hangers on. She loftily ignored him — he was just obviously jealous that Laura never talked to him — and took her rightful place at Laura’s side.

 

* * *

 

**After**

It was a Wednesday night and Audrey was bitterly drinking at home — five months after Laura and Robbie’s deaths, bars still felt like too much of an embarrassment for the woman whose husband had died with his dick in her best friend’s mouth — when there was a knock at the door. Looking through the peephole, she saw Laura standing on her doorstep, somehow looking even better than she had when she was alive.

Bitch.

She fished out her phone and opened the door. “Stay there,” she told Laura and took a photo of her. “For a scrapbook, under the title ‘Zombie whore bitch ex-best friend comes to visit.’”

Laura winced and that more than anything got Audrey to look at her again. “Huh,” she said. “That’s new. First time I can remember you even pretending that much at something like remorse. Not even when you broke into my house to steal some of my shit.” She turned and headed back towards her living room and the wine bottle. “Come in,” she called over her shoulder. “What do you want? More craft supplies?”

“No, I managed to solve my being dead problem.”

“Congratulations with that.” Audrey reclaimed her place on the sofa and didn’t bother reclaiming her glass — it suddenly felt like a drinking from the bottle kind of night.

“Uh,” Laura said, looking around at the piles of crap all over the place. “I really like what you’ve done with the place.”

“Yeah, well, there seems a lot less point in tidying when, you know, there’s no one around to appreciate it. So, if you’re not here to leech thread and the occasional needle off me, why *are* you here?”

Laura was looking at her with a smile that seemed more real than any Audrey could remember. She hated it. “Maybe I wanted to come back and visit my other best friend. See how she’s doing.”

Audrey waved the bottle around as if to illustrate. “Kind of shit. Congratulations. You’ve seen.”

“I have. Would you like me to go?”

Audrey considered. “Eh,” she said. “Got another bottle of wine? This one’s almost empty.”

“That,” Laura said. “Is something I can get.” She got up and disappeared out the door. Audrey wasn’t whether she hoped that she wouldn’t be back, or that she would.

She just decided to concentrate on finishing the remnants of this bottle for the moment, and leave the future for when it arrived.

 

* * *

 

 

 **Before**  

Laura hooked her arm through Audrey’s. “Come on,” she said, walking off.

“I’ve got Math now,” Audrey protested halfheartedly, though she was already moving, swept along in Laura’s current.

“So?”

“Not all of can get Bs without trying,” Audrey muttered. Even if was only two months before graduation and nothing she’d do in there really mattered.

“Then why bother? Are you really going to use math once you’re out of here?”

The adult world, stretching before Audrey like an oncoming tidal wave was still a bit too real for her to feel comfortable joking about with Laura. It wasn’t like she had any delusions of college, not with her grades, and without them…

Well, she didn’t think that she’d ever escape this town. Wasn’t sure she even wanted to, not really.

It might be boring, but it was also safe.

“Guess not,” she said. “Where’re we going?”

Laura shrugged restlessly. “Somewhere. It’s too sunny to be stuck inside.”

They walked and walked until there no buildings in front of them, only the endless flat green of the world outside the town. Only then did Laura release Audrey’s arm — almost like an afterthought — and flopped down on the ground, staring up at the sky.

“Is this all there is?” she asked. “Boring school, then a boring job, boring boys all the while and finally a boring death.”

Audrey sat down on the ground next to her and shrugged. “There’s happiness, too. Love.”

“Love is just a crock of shit society uses to get you to buy the bill of goods. Find the right guy, you’ll fall in love, you’ll be happy. Have his children, you’ll love them, you’ll be happy. Suck his cock for twenty years, and you’ll be happy until he leaves you for someone younger and still expects you to look after the kids apart from when he feels like being the fun parent for a weekend.” She snorted. “It’s all lies, crafted to make you buy into some bullshit dream so that you don’t realise what life you had, has passed you by, and you’re in the grave.”

Audrey didn’t know quite what to say. When Laura put it like that… she’d never laid out her feelings quite so plainly before, and it made Audrey feel a little stupid that she’d never thought of things like that until now. Not that her parents’ marriage had been that bad before her mother passed on… but they’d definitely settled with each other. If there’d been any great passion between them, it had been gone before she could remember.

“Sex isn’t too bad, though,” Laura added thoughtfully. “It can take the edge off things.”

Audrey blushed and said nothing. She wouldn’t know. It wasn’t that she was a prude, she just… wanted her first time to mean something. And none of the local boys had impressed her that much.

“Kissing’s not bad either. Even if both kissing and sex come with boys who like to get their macho bullshit over everything,” Laura said, then propped herself up on one elbow and looked speculatively at Audrey in such a way as made her stomach dip nervously. “You ever kissed a girl?”

Audrey looked at her like a stunned bunny rabbit. “N-no,” she said. “I mean, why would I have? I mean-“

“Want to try it out? See if it’s any better than the alternative?”

“What about-“ she searched her mind for the name of Laura’s current boyfriend, which was surprisingly hard to remember at the moment. “Javier?” she finally recalled.

“Eh,” Laura said. “Whose macho bullshit do you think I was talking about?” She tilted her head, looking at Audrey in such a way as to make her stomach twist, and it didn’t quite feel like nervousness this time. “So?”

Audrey just stared mutely back for a minute, but she already knew how this was going to go. She never could say no to Laura. She finally nodded and Laura leaned in.

Kissing Laura was like she might have imagined, if she’d ever thought about it. Slow and teasing and intoxicating and relentless. At some point, she found herself twisting her fingers in Laura’s hair; at another, running her nails down her back.

Eventually, Laura pulled back and the spell was broken. Audrey scuttled away and huddled in on herself, looking down at her dirty shoes. “So?” she ventured, not daring to glance up.

“Hmm?” Laura said. “Oh, yeah. Kissing’s pretty much the same, as I always suspected.”

“Oh, good,” Audrey said faintly, wrapping her arms tighter around her knees, resisting the urge to cry, not really knowing why she felt that way.

It wasn’t as though there’d be any point, anyway.

 

* * *

 

 **After**  

A wine bottle bearing a fancy label was brandished in front her face. “This good enough for you?” Laura asked.

Audrey shrugged. It’d get her drunker and at this point, that seemed the most important objective. “I didn’t get the front door,” she said. It seemed very important for some reason.

“No,” Laura said. “You didn’t.”

“Huh.” Well, maybe not that important. She reached for the wine to find the cork already removed, and tipped it back.

Huh.

Maybe this was just Slightly Tipsy Audrey speaking, but, “That’s really good,” she informed Laura.

“Thanks,” Laura said, giving her a small smile. “I’m sure the vintner would be gratified to hear that. So, what’re you up to these days?”

Audrey gave her the hairy eyeball. “Are you actually interested? Because if not, I know you can do small talk better than that.”

“Actually interested. Why else would I be back to see you?”

Audrey was increasing convinced that this was just some poorly fashioned double of Laura, but what the hell. “The heady heights of assistant manager at the local Walmart.”

“What happened to the Body Farm?”

“Sold it to Robbie’s assistant head trainer, who promptly ran it into the ground. It’s a health food shop now.” She waved in the air. “Enough about me. What happened to you?”

“Well,” Laura said, settling into the couch. “After I left you, I managed to get involved in a war between some gods. Small g, not big g, though some Jesuses did make an appearance…”

When her alarm woke Audrey the next morning, she groaned into her pillow from the sound and the pounding of her head, then flailed until she managed to turn it off and grab the water bottle she kept at the side of her bed. Water, some paracetamol and about ten minutes extra rest with her arm wrapped around her face allowed her to feel somewhat human.

And then she groaned as she remembered what had happened last night.

Fucking Laura. Turning up again out of fucking nowhere.

Staggering kitchen-wards confirmed the worst — Laura sprawled gracelessly asleep on the couch, snoring loudly. So it hadn’t been some drunken dream, not unless she was still asleep.

Maybe she could just grab some coffee and escape before Laura woke. Hopefully Laura’d be gone before Audrey returned from work.

Yeah, that could work.

Her hopes were dashed when the snoring stopped when the coffee maker started chuntering to itself.

“Would it be asking too much to hope that you’ll make me some coffee as well?” Laura asked, sticking her head up over the level of the back of the couch. Her bed hair was something epic and there was something about the drawn lines of her face that made her look more vulnerable than Audrey could remember.

“Fine,” she said, slamming another coffee cup down next to her, then wincing at the sound. Maybe that hadn’t been such a hot idea.

At least Laura flinched as well, though that didn’t feel as good as it should.

She stared at the coffee maker in awkward silence before clearing her throat. “So,” she tried. “Was I just imagining it yesterday when you said that you and Shadow stole the one true keystone of America?”

Laura gave her a tentative smile. “Not at all. It was being stored in a town whose name no living being can remember. Luckily, apparently my former status as a zombie means that I get to be a loophole to that clause…”

 

* * *

 

**Before**

It felt like the day should be grey and overcast as she looked down on her father’s grave, as — funeral done — everyone who had attended dispersed. And maybe like it shouldn’t have been a Tuesday.

It wouldn’t look at all like it should, once it was scrapbooked.

A few people, like Robbie and Erin nodded to her as they left, but then they were gone.

That was it. She was alone now. He might not have been much, but he had been hers.

Laura sidled up and slung an arm around her. “So, what you’re going to do with all that inheritance money?”

Audrey choked out a laugh. “Save it, of course,” she managed. Just in case of some future emergency.

“Not have some big fancy wake?” Laura’s mocked disappointment was probably disrespectful, but it just made Audrey cling to her all the harder.

Audrey knew Laura was doing the best she could. However bad that was.

“Come on,” Laura finally said. “Let’s get you out of here.” She started guiding Audrey towards the gate.

It was those words, that action, that burst the final dam within Audrey and she buried her head in Laura’s shoulder and cried and cried until she had no tears left, Laura standing stiff as a board all the while.

Then Laura took her home and plied her with alcohol until she was so drunk she vomited all over the living room floor.

That was the thing about Laura. She might not be comforting, she might not be expressive, she might not seem to care, but she was there, always there, and she was Audrey’s.

It would be just another shit layer of the shit sandwich that was Laura and Robbie’s funerals.

 

* * *

 

**After**

Laura was there until Saturday afternoon — Audrey was always a little surprised when she came back to find Laura still in the house — then finally gone again, with a hug and a promise to return that left Audrey feeling twisted up inside.

Life returned to normal, pretty much. Work at the shit ass supermarket, returning home, cooking dinner, occasionally doing something in the evening.

She felt less of an urge to drink, though. Maybe it was knowing something that all the boring ass turds around her didn’t - that Laura was alive, that she was doing amazing things that everyone else around here couldn’t even imagine, that she’d stolen the actual fucking keystone to America.

It was certainly something she kept in mind every time she saw someone smirking at her or with pity in their eyes.

God, Eagle Point was a dump. But there wasn’t anywhere else she could imagine living. And at least here she had a home, a job. A place she could hide until she eventually died.

No matter how grey it all seemed after Laura’s visit.

 

* * *

 

 **Before**  

“Fuck Daniel,” Laura said as Audrey opened the door. Laura brandished a bottle of cheap wine at her. “He was never good enough for you anyway.”

Audrey shrugged apathetically and let her in.

Whatever.

It hardly seemed like it worth having a pity party over, but she wouldn’t turn away the free alcohol. Or Laura. She’d never turn her away either.

She settled down on the couch, Laura curling up next to her, and turned on some crappy reality tv to help numb everything, along with the wine.

“It’s not like I ever thought he was great,” she announced after they’d drunk half the bottle between them. “I didn’t!” she insisted, even though Laura hadn’t said anything. “It’s just… He seemed like the last half decent prospect in this shitty town, you know? It’s all downhill from here.”

Laura hugged her slightly awkwardly. “If he’d cheat on you, he wasn’t worth keeping.”

She didn’t quite burst into tears, but it was a close thing for a moment or two. She took another gulp of wine instead.

“So, how’re pickings at the casino?” she asked, just not wanting to talk about another failed relationship.

“Eh,” Laura grunted. “The staff are either way too uptight or slime balls. Sometimes both. The guests… those worth spending a night with are rarely worth two. And they’re only there on holiday, anyway. Nothing lasting is ever going to start that way.”

“Fuck boys,” Audrey said viciously.

“Yeah,” Laura said. “Fuck boys.” She paused in such a way that Audrey could almost hear the wheels turning.

“No,” she said pre-emptively.

“You don’t even know what I’m going to suggest,” Laura said with an expression of mild amusement.

“I know enough,” Audrey said weakly, which just seemed to amuse Laura more.

Laura reached forward and brushed a strand of hair out of Audrey’s face, and the breath caught in Audrey’s throat. “Just think about it,” she said, leaning close enough that Audrey could feel her breath against her face. “No stupid boys. Just us. Just best friends. Why bother with anyone else?”

Audrey felt like she wanted to cry again, abruptly. A tearing pain, deeper than anything Daniel had caused. “Promise you won’t leave me, won’t fuck around on me,” she whispered. “That when you decide it’s over, you’ll just let me know?”

“Promise,” Laura said and leaned in to kiss her.

 

* * *

 

**After**

Laura visited again and again. Once every couple of months or so. Always for a few days. Always with new stories. Never with Shadow, though he did feature heavily in her tales.

“Why does Shadow never come with you?” she once asked during a pause between stories whilst Laura was curled up on the floor opposite her.

“He has other things to be doing when I’m visiting you,” Laura said.

“I thought he was your sun,” Audrey said sardonically.

“Everyone needs some shade every now and again,” Laura said with a smile.

And that was the other thing. Laura smiled now. Actually smiled, not the facsimiles that Audrey remembered seeing on her.

“You seem happy these days,” she said yet another time.

Laura’s smile briefly became radiant. “I am! I guess I didn’t know everything was just graduations of pain, all the time, until it didn’t hurt any more.” Her expression became more wry. “Not that poking into America’s seedy magical underground can’t suck — a lot — at times.” She extended a foot and poked Audrey. “But being able to relax, feel good like this in the quiet times - it’s so much better than I ever imagined it could be.”

That was the best thing - that she got to see Laura happy like this. It was the worst of it too — the fact that Audrey could never have been the one to make her feel this way, that she’d utterly failed Laura like this. But she didn’t let any of that show when Laura was around, and tried not to dwell too much when she wasn’t.

One visit — the fifth, maybe the sixth — Audrey came home to find Laura waving a scrapbook in the air. “Guess what I found,” she said cheerily.

Audrey scowled. “Give me that,” she said, reaching for it, only for Laura to snatch it away.

“Ah-ah-ah,” she said, turning away from Audrey’s flailing limbs. “Let’s see what we have here.”

As if she didn’t already know. As if she hadn’t already looked.

Laura might have turned over a leaf, but she could still be *such* an asshole on occasion.

Audrey stopped trying undignifiedly to grab the scrapbook off her, and just settled for scowling at Audrey’s back instead. Not that it seemed to deter her one jot.

“Local man disappears in Auxvasse, Missouri,” Laura read aloud. “Why, I do seem remember stopping there at one point.”

“Yes, yes,” Audrey snapped. “So I’ve been making scrapbooks about your adventures. So what?”

So what if she wanted to keep a hold of the one technicolor thing in her life when Laura wasn’t here? So what if she wanted to remind herself that there was life, something happening, outside this shitty grey town?

“Nothing,” Laura smirked. “I just think it’s rather sweet.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Audrey snapped. “Now what do you want for dinner tonight? Not that crappy Chinese from Eastern Express, I hope.”

“It’s weird, the things you miss when you’re away from your hometown,” Laura mused, finally turning around and putting that damned book down. Audrey made a note to hide them better when she had a spare moment. “But, fair enough. Let’s do something homemade tonight. I’ll chop and you cook?”

“Deal,” Audrey said. Unless Laura had somehow gotten a lot better at cooking whilst travelling all the time, it wasn’t as though she was going to let Laura near the oven.

“Good,” Laura said, and they wandered into the kitchen together.

 

* * *

 

**Before**

“Come on,” Audrey sung, prodding at a recalcitrant Laura. “It’s noon. I don’t have to work at the supermarket today, and you don’t have to be at your crappy casino job for another eight hours.”

Laura rolled over, wrapping herself tighter in the blankets by way of response. Audrey briefly tried to tug her out of bed, blankets and all, then retreated to the bathroom and returned with a glass of water.

“Don’t,” Laura said, opening one grumpy eye, “Even think about it.”

Audrey sighed. “Come on. I’d just like to spend of the few decent days of the years that I don’t spend cooped up in that crappy shop with you. Please.”

Laura opened both eyes, apparently resigned to the fact that she wasn’t getting back to sleep, at least for the moment, and said, “And I’d like to get a little more sleep, so I can turn up to work looking fresh. I’m almost at the point of convincing the floor manager that I’d make a good croupier instead of just a waitress.”

Audrey repressed the urge to ask where Laura’s restraint had been when the assistant manager’s job at Walmart had been open. There didn’t seem much point. And she *knew* that Laura didn’t put as much premium on sunny days with fresh air as Audrey did, but… “I’ll make it worth your while,” she said.

Suddenly Laura looked interested. “Oh, if that’s the offer on the table…”

Audrey gave her a half-smile. “If you want me to be able to do anything, you might want to unwrap yourself from the sheets.”

“Your wish is my command,” Laura drawled and then spent an amusing few minutes actually struggling out of the cocoon she’d made.

Well, amusing for Audrey, at any rate.

“Watching anything funny?” Laura asked waspishly half way through.

Audrey straightened her face, poorly. “Not at all. Carry on.”

“Okay, ready,” Laura announced and Audrey climbed onto the bed to join her.

This, at least, was one of the ways they really worked together. Audrey had learned every part of Laura’s body since they’d started and Laura… Laura wasn’t to be outdone, at least on her good days. And this seemed to be one of them.

Afterwards, luxuriating in the afterglow, Audrey almost told Laura that she loved her, but managed to keep the words in at the last moment. There wouldn’t be any point. At best, she was fairly sure Laura wasn’t in the right place to say it back, which would hurt. At worst, Laura would accuse her of trying to emotionally suffocate her, which would be worse.

Maybe, though. Someday. There was time. It’d only been a couple of months since they’re started this.

But not today. So instead she said, “So, about going out for the afternoon?”

Laura groaned and hit her with a pillow.

 

* * *

 

**After**

It was almost time for Laura to leave, but Audrey didn’t want to let her go. To be honest, she’d felt like that almost every visit.

Maybe even that first time, when Laura’d been dead and walking. That would explain the road trip.

But it had been getting more and more urgent every time she’d come back, until now…

Not that she could say any of that to Laura. She might be new and Shadow-improved, or whatever, but Laura was still Laura, and Audrey had learned the lessons about clinging long ago.

So, instead she asked, “So, where will you be going this time?” in a vague attempt to distract Laura for a bit longer.

“Not entirely sure,” Laura admitted. “We think we’ve found a connection between people disappearing at motels over a period of decades. But it’s different motels, different highways, different states. Just… a feeling connecting them.”

“Do you think it’s a cult? A god? Some kind of faerie or vampire?”

Laura looked at her for a moment, then laughed out loud. “When you say it like that, it’s still a little hard to believe this is my life. And… I honestly don’t know.” She rolled her eyes. “Though did I tell you about this minor godling out of… some fucking Northern European place who’d decided to get with the times by covering himself in body glitter?”

“Just once or twice,” Audrey said sardonically. She paused. “Any chance you could take some photos for me at some point?” she asked tentatively. “It’d be nice to see some of these things for myself.”

“Not to mention your scrapbook!” Laura chortled.

Audrey gave her the finger. “But, seriously,” she said.

It was Laura’s turn to look tentative. “You know,” she said cautiously. “You could come with me. Us.”

Audrey’s first instinct was to laugh. “What? No, of course I can’t. I’ve got a job here.”

“In a supermarket you hate. In a town you hate.”

Audrey clung onto the arm of the couch, as if for reassurance. “But what would I do out there? How would I earn enough money to live?”

“Shadow and I have ways of making enough for survival. And… you’d be surprised. There’s times it’s useful having someone around not touched by magic.”

“I can’t,” Audrey said, feeling panic rise within her.

Laura looked her dead in the eyes. “You can,” she said, with seemingly utter faith in Audrey. “But you don’t have to.”

 

* * *

 

 

**Before**

“Where the fuck have you been?” Audrey screeched as Laura finally walked in, so fucking late in the evening it had ticked over into the morning.

Laura turned away from her in the act of taking her jacket off, just like she always did.

Bitch.

“Well?” Audrey demanded. “Or did you somehow forget it’s our six month anniversary?” She gestured at the remnants of the meal she’d been intending they share.

Laura mumbled something.

“What was that?” Audrey snapped.

“Maybe I don’t see anything to celebrate!” Laura shouted at her, finally turning around so Audrey could see her face, cold and mocking.

Audrey felt something crumple inside of her, but she didn’t let any of that show. “Get out,” she said, her voice low and angry.

“Oh, great,” Laura said sarcastically. “First you want me here, then you want me to leave. Make up your mind, woman.”

“This my kitchen, my house, my life, and I want you OUT!” Audrey screamed, crying and unable to do anything about it.

“Fine,” Laura shrugged. “Guess it’s just as well I still have my place after all.”

Audrey searched around for something… non-hurty and finally stuck her fingers in the remaining cold greens and threw them at Audrey. “GET OUT!”

“Fine,” Laura said, angrily wiping vegetables off, grabbing her coat and storming out.

Audrey collapsed into a chair and cried herself out.

Fuck.

 

* * *

 

 

**After**

Shadow… wasn’t as she remembered. More imposing — undoubtedly a lot of which was due to coming into his own, but possibly a part was that he didn’t seem to feel the need to hide himself anymore. He was also less friendly. He took one glance at her, then looked straight at Laura. “You’re bringing Audrey along? Really?” he asked skeptically. “No offense,” he said to Audrey.

Laura’s arm went around her back. “She knows what she’s getting into. Which is more than you could say when you first got involved.”

“Granted,” he said. “But still, you’re bringing Audrey along?” There was something in his voice, an undertone that implied there was something she was missing.

Despite his words — and the full knowledge that sometimes things got more than a little dangerous around them — Audrey was starting to get a little offended.

“Yes,” Laura said, a diamond-hard expression on her face. “Unless and until she decides otherwise.”

“And I’m in,” Audrey added for good measure.

Shadow shook his head, but didn’t say anything further on the subject. Still, for being the sun of Laura’s life, there sure was trouble in heaven.

A week later, as she lay on a hard motel mattress, pretending to sleep, acting as bait for a supernatural serial killer, she had to admit that Shadow might have had a point.

All the more so as the door creaked open, and quiet footsteps started to move towards the bed.

Audrey clutched the charm Laura had given her, and really hoped this worked.

 

* * *

 

**Before**

It was six months after that final fight that Laura finally came knocking on the door.

“Hey,” she said when Audrey opened the door. “So, how’re you doing?” she asked, as unfazed as if they’d just talked yesterday, just like they’d used to.

And — confronted with that — all of sudden, Audrey realised that she was more than happy to play along with that. She wasn’t angry any more, just sad that she’d missed her best friend for all that time.

“I-I’ve been doing fine,” she said. “Come in.”

Laura followed her to the living room. “So,” she said. “I managed to get that croupier job.”

Audrey smiled. “Cool. How is it? Does it live up to your dreams?”

“I’ve had a lot less men groping me, so that’s certainly a bonus. And I get to play with cards all night.” She smirked a little. “Even learned a few tricks. Much more interesting than just taking orders and carrying drinks.”

“I finally decided to do something with the money I inherited from Dad.”

“Huh. Finally decided to live up the good life, huh?”

“Hah. I wish. It wasn’t like it was ever that much. Nope, just enough to start up business, together with a loan.”

“Oh, a business woman,” Laura said, looking mock impressed. “Tell me more.”

“Well, I’m more of a business partner. I got to talking with Robbie from school, and he had a good business plan for opening up a gym locally, so…”

“You provided the money, he provided the muscle?” Laura asked, then waggled her eyebrows a little. “And maybe something more?”

Audrey felt obscurely hurt by her reaction, but, well, Laura wasn’t completely wrong. “Those benefits came around after the fact. Honestly, the biggest perk is that at least now when I’m running things, I’m managing for myself.”

“So you’re wearing the pants in this relationship. Good on you.”

“Well, he does tend to wear shorts,” she said, smiling a little. “But I haven’t exactly put it like that to him. It might hurt his feelings.”

“So,” Laura said, settling down. “Tell me exactly how good he looks when he’s exercising. I haven’t got a regular squeeze at the moment, and I feel like I’m missing out.”

“God, Laura,” Audrey said laughing, curling up next to her like they’d never been parted. “You’re *such* an asshole.”

 

* * *

 

 **After**  

Shit. Shit. Shit.

She whipped out the gun she’d been hiding under the pillow and pointed it, hands shaking, at the shadowy figure in the room.

“Do you really think that can hurt me?” it asked with a large booming voice.

Just pull the trigger, she remembered Shadow telling her. This gun should be able to hurt pretty much anything. Audrey followed his instructions. Nothing happened.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

The figure laughed, and that, more than crummy dialogue, really pissed Audrey the hell off. She somehow managed to take the safeguard off and…

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! went the gun, kicking and bucking all over the place, as the room strobed in front of her.

The figure was still standing in the blotchy dimness left afterwards, though it was holding its side in a vaguely offended manner. She raised the gun again and…

The door burst in and another figure, moving almost so fast it blurred, tackled the other one to the floor.

Fuck. How was she supposed to know who was winning?

She fumbled for the light switch , turned it on and screamed.

The room looked like it had been turned into an impromptu abattoir. A blood covered figure rose from the foot of the bed and she aimed the pistol at it before realising it was Laura.

“Are you alright?” she yelled.

Laura’s mouth moved, but Audrey couldn’t quite make out what she was saying.

“What was that?”

“Put the gun down! Please!”

“Oh,” she said, realising she was still holding it. She dropped her hand to the bed, still not quite able to let it go.

Laura advanced on her slowly, like she was a wild animal. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“Me?” Audrey said, starting to laugh a little maniacally. “What about you? You’ve got all this?” She mimed at Laura’s face, but then didn’t really know where to stop.

Laura looked down. “Um,” she said. “Crap. Stay there.” She disappeared out of the room, and Shadow came in, wincing a little at whatever he saw at the base of the bed.

“Hey,” he said, also approaching Audrey slowly. “Are you hurt?”

“He didn’t touch me.” Her hearing having recovered a little by now, she lowered her voice to something more normal. “He didn’t touch me somehow. Where were you? I thought you supposed to get him before he could get this close to me. I thought you said you were good at this.”

“Hey, I didn’t think you should be brought in on this in the first place,” he said, and Audrey considered shooting him as well. Something of that must have shown on her face, because he held his hands up. “Just saying. But you knew the score. We had to get far enough away that he couldn’t sniff us out, and he was sneakier than we thought.”

Audrey burst into tears.

“Hey,” he said. “Hey. We’re here now and he isn’t,” he reassured her, and held her awkwardly while she cried.

She hated to admit it, but he was kind of better at this than Laura.

Finally he was pulled away from her by a freshly showered Laura. “I can handle this,” she told him, then looked at Audrey and took her by the hand. “Just keep your eyes on me,” she said. “Just keep your eyes on me, and we can walk out of here and go to my room.”

Audrey did, and followed her.

“What did you do to him?” she asked once they were out of there.

“I… may have kept some benefits from being dead.” She rolled her eyes. “Okay, I may have lied a little bit when I said that I wasn’t dead anymore. Not that I’m exactly dead anymore — I eat, I drink, I sleep. And I don’t rot. God, that sucked. But I’m not strictly alive, either. Don’t ask me to explain — I didn’t understand the bullshit the goddess who did this for me said then, and I certainly can’t repeat it. But my state has a few advantages. Like being able to kick several shades of shit out of irritating little pissants who think they’re so clever just because they can ignore a bullet or two. Are you *sure* you’re alright?”

The concern was very touching, but Audrey didn’t think that the answer was going to be yes anytime soon. Luckily by this time they were in Laura’s room. Which looked very Laura-y, but… “Where are all of Shadow’s things?” she asked.

“We don’t stay in the same room, when we have the option,” Laura said.

Audrey wrinkled her brow. “Aren’t you two together?” she asked. “You love him now, he’s your sun, et cetera and so forth.”

“I do love him,” Laura said carefully. “He makes me feel more myself than I can remember. But I don’t love him in the way he wanted. And, to be fair, he hasn’t exactly completely moved past what I did in the past either. We’re currently… looking for different things.”

“Oh,” Audrey said. For some reason she noticed that she was still holding Laura’s hand. Which wasn’t quite normal.

But then again, what about this situation was?

“Besides,” Laura said, looking away from her. “He might be my sun, but that just allowed me to see some things more clearly. Like there might be someone else I love. Even if they might not have the same feelings for me.”

“Oh,” Audrey said, more quietly.

Laura looked back at her, fear mixed with hope in her eyes. “Sorry,” she said. “I know this is a fucking shitty time to lay it on you, but…” she gestured back in the direction of Audrey’s room. “I could have lost you tonight, and…”

Audrey hugged her, tightly. “Oh god. Really not the time for me to be answering, either. I don’t know, okay? I don’t know if I can get back into a place where I love you.” She felt Laura’s body slump beneath her and held on even tighter in response. “But I’m not going to leave you, okay? I’m going to be here, and we can figure this out together, okay?”

Laura pulled back a little to look at her, and her expression was that of relief. “Okay,” she said. “That’s all I really needed to know. Okay.”

“So,” Audrey said, her heart rate having returned to something approaching normal. “What else of this weird, weird world of ours can you show me?”

Moving in close again, Laura gave her a slow, sly smile, bending her head to whisper in Audrey’s ear; her breath a warm tickle on the side of her jaw.

“All of it, Audrey,” she said, and it sounded like a promise. “I want to show you all of it.”


End file.
